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OP-ED

Afghans and Edi Rama as cliché users

Politiko 2021-08-15 19:16:50

Alfred Lela

Edi Rama had written himself a long letter today on Facebook. He argued there, through a contradictory style, why Albania should accept Afghans. Making himself the initiator of the demand that American and NATO collaborators in Afghanistan should not be left to the mercy of fate, now that the Taliban is approaching the country's capital. This fact, if true, honors the Prime Minister of a small country, who can not bear the military burden in a global alliance, but offers himself as a humanitarian contributor.

What is missing from the initial act, which the Prime Minister says he did at a NATO summit, is the subsequent action with his people. This means that either Rama did not make the offer he says, or he considers his people a crowd and not a public one.

Of course, the Prime Minister has a history with the (non-consensual) promises to the Americans, which should have caused him a governing crisis at the beginning of his first term. The reaction to the chemical waste was so strong that it forced Mr. Rama 'kept' his people and let go of the promise given to the Americans. If the cases of chemicals and Afghans threatened by the Taliban have no comparison, about the danger to Albanians, the lack of transparency is the same both times. The Prime Minister replaces this authoritarian style of his with "having a governing majority". Which, of course, made the video an overnight sensation.

What worries this article is that Albania produces 'refugees' for developed countries and expects refugees from countries at war. And this is a problem. We do not have that healthy balance, say Canada, which is on the list of Afghan host countries, of being the coveted place to live by foreigners. A tide and a tide come and crash on our shores. The tides are the Albanians fleeing because the country does not offer them prosperity and a horizon for the future of the children, and the tides are the 'displaced of bad luck' from their countries: like the Iranians of the MEK, like the Syrians of war, and now the Afghans of persecuted by the Taliban. The gap is still deep as our fugitives are in the hundreds of thousands, while the ‘newcomers of chaos’ are in the thousands. But the problem remains, and here, perhaps unconsciously, the negative reaction to the arrival of Afghans also begins. Of course, here should come down those who would say 'no' to everything, or the pathological haters of the political opponent, in this case, the Prime Minister.

Even the opposition lacks the diagnosis of the case and instead offers false 'pro-American' and humanist solidarity, which to many resembles a hypocrite. As it seems, the Prime Minister blindly puts his hand in the bag of humanistic comparisons, taking out the Jews from there - do not expect surprises. Circumstances are so different because such is the world today compared to that of the late 1930s.

We can not explain the current national solutions, neither with the rescue of the Jews from Zog's government in the 1930s nor with the humanist Mother Teresa in the 1980s of the same century. By using them out of place, instead of exalting them, we turn them into clichés, that is, into empty things whose name is known, but not their meaning. Because, according to personal or political needs, we strip them of their first meaning.

Afghans should be welcomed. As good Muslims and Christians, Albanians must open the doors of the reason for people whose lives are in danger. Besides, they pose no danger, as they are, for the most part, the elite of that country. With them comes no social, political, or religious threat.

The only danger lies between us. It is not considering minorities, speaking on behalf of the people, disregarding public opinion. Why not, even the use of clichés. Inappropriate, especially when in cliché you seek to restore some of the spiritual foundations of the nation.